Oxford Prison Corridor Painting

This is a painting of a corridor inside the Oxford Prison Museum in Oxford, England. This is the corridor that prisoners would have walked on their way to their cells while the prison was still in use. I was captured by the gorgeous light at the end of this unsettlingly dark hallway, and I wanted to depict this interior so that the sense of light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel would provide a sharp contrast to the gloom in the area where I stood to take my reference photos. The bricks are glazed but still exude damp, and the dripping stains on the upper walls suggest the horrors that might lie inside the cells themselves. But I hope that the viewer will feel the same sense of hope that I felt, looking towards the almost magical warm light in the centre of the image.